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my ex boyfriend is going to propose to his girlfriend. He

called to tell me.

We had gym together in 8th grade, and I had a crush on his brother. We shared the quiet discomfort of existing in adult bodies at young ages. We rode the bus home together every day.

He comes bringing hydration; Costco water bottles, tall cans of diet coke, McDonald’s sweet tea (no ice). Precious memories, now trash that still exists. I wonder how much of it is buried in a Greater Los Angeles landfill, and how much is circling the doldrums of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I wonder how many of the cells in my bone marrow are made up of fast food burgers we ate in his hatchback.

I want to wash his hair. Not at all sexually, but not exactly platonically either. Our relationship extends beyond the platonic. It is compulsory.

Love like ours isn’t for a heteronormative, hegemonic, patriarchal world. Our love is revolutionary. I know I have allyship in him. We see the same worlds, even when we aren’t able to inhabit them. I don’t want him to choose me.

I can surrender. I can accept our distance as the way things are. That we aren’t even distant, only fitting the social norms of the moment. I can respect that our connection exists inside a lexical gap, one that makes it hard for the world, and therefore us, to accept our shared closeness.

I don’t know what the sauce is. I don’t know why some relationships gently mellow and others are unable to make the same transition. Can childlike love last past childhood?

It makes me feel sad. It makes me feel boring. It makes me feel disappointed. It makes me believe in God. It makes me get angry with God.

Somewhere in hyperspace, we are together on the bus, sharing wired headphones. When he gets off, I’ll still have two stops to go.